Peace on and from our River

The Susquehanna is so beautiful. Your river is probably beautiful too.

As they bless us with their Beauty and their Bounty, we must also bless them.

We must care for them.

Clean water for everyone is a great start on Peace. Water you can drink, water you can fish in, water you can swim in, water you can walk beside… wait, am I sounding like my (Middle Susquehanna) Riverkeeper? You bet I am.

Clean Water for Peace. Us for Clean Water. Us for Peace. Pretty simple in theory. Let’s make it true in practice.

The Surprise of Peace

The world is plenty beautiful enough. But there is nothing wrong that I can see with occasionally gilding the lily.

Chihouly doesn’t have a subtle bone in his body. oh, I like that about him. Although actually, these beautiful tubes of glass are fairly ethereal… They float above this field of ferns and make you happy.

Beauty is great for happiness. Beauty and Happiness are both great for Peace. Celebrate!

Cycles of Peace

Even though the weather remains warm, there’s no disguising that summer has been transformed into fall. The days are shorter, the sun less direct. The fields are golden, final crops are being harvested. The skin on fruits and vegetables is thicker; fall offerings replace summer. And pushed along by the drought the leaves are beginning to turn.

When I’m not seeing this all through the lens of a swimmer losing her outdoor pools, I am amazed at the abundance. And apples are coming!

The cycle of the year is so astounding. And, yet, it’s so easy to ignore the rolling bounty. All year long, every day, something magical happens. Too often we deprive ourselves of the wonder by focusing on what we don’t have. What we don’t have anymore. What we don’t have yet. What we don’t have, period.

Now is the time of the ingathering. I thought about this last night as I was writing the musing to respond to this beautiful photo. I had just finished a conversation with a dear friend who lost his mother. It was her time to be gathered back in at the end of a very long life. Now he has the memories to preserve. He’ll mourn, even while knowing they lived every last drop of her life and her love.

The wheel of the year continues to roll. Let us gather in, enjoy, preserve, and share the Peace just as we gather in, enjoy, preserve and share the Bounty of the season. Blessed be.

Ponds of Peace

My brother is a deliberate man. He, unlike his speed demon sister(s), studies things, thinks about them, and gradually goes about working his way through whatever he’s doing.

So he is with ponds. He decided he wanted to build a pond up on the mountain. So for a year he read about it. And he built one. And then he built a second one. Cindy and he got crazy with this one. They’ve filled it up with native fish and other nibbling things. They put the right plants (including the oh, my goodness, mountain cranberries) in and around the pond. It looks sort of murky, but when you cup your hands and bring the water up it’s crystal clear. It’s a living pond. It’s gorgeous.

And it’s oh, so swimable, if you don’t mind those nibbly moments in your close encounters of the fishy kind.

The water is silky and smooth and it was perfect for swimming… or, well, floating. Tom and I both got a little weepy thinking about how much the parents and debbie’s family would have love the pond. And all of them and then eventually most of us, will wind up in the blueberry patch that overlooks the pond, good ash making the soil just a bit more fertile.

The night before, a mama deer and her fawn had bedded down where we’ll end up. Cindy’s a hunter, but she has a big safe space around the house and a woods that mama lives in where no one hunts and few even walk. Mother Earth at her most grand.

Nature, getting back to itself. There is so much Peace in this land. So much Peace in that pond… just a really sweet balance in life on earth… I gave thanks and reveled in Peace, Love and all the bounty of their garden. Late summer. It’s an amazing thing. And, oh, my goodness, somehow summer has drifted into September… Peace.

Gathering for Peace

Well, this was certainly a gathering I’d have enjoyed — fish-breath notwithstanding.

A pod of pelicans, sitting on the sandbar, enjoying the company, basking in the sun, contemplating life and the bounty of the ocean.

Some days there are troubles to deal with. Some days your job is simply to give yourself over to gratitude.

Let’s revel in the moments of Peace we have, It fuels us to make more!

Find your own little sandbar of Peace and enjoy the world!

Perseid Peace

I feel so privileged to have seen the display the Perseid Meteor Shower was offering the other night. The world is extraordinary. Far too often I don’t show up and gasp in awe.

For some reason, I’m too busy, I’m too tired, I’m too lazy, I allow myself to miss the bounty of this world — all the while focusing on the paucity of existence.

I should really stop that. Because what I saw on Friday morning is an incredible gift. And there it was: free, available for just the tiniest bit of work — and totally magnificent.

Looking at the Perseids gives you Peace and helps you understand why we must make it between all people. All people should be free and safe and joyous enough to sit back and look up and marvel. Hurrah! Peace is out there to inspire us and at the same time demand that we participate in it for the good of the world and our souls. Peace. Perseids. Not a lot more to say!

The Peace of Watermen and Women

You know me. I’ll wax eloquent all year long about the water. There is no time more special for me than the summer when I’m able to swim outside — I know, you’ve heard me say this often enough — but I like watching water almost as much as I like floating in it.

Its Beauty stills my soul.

But in all my water rapture, I often forget that there are those who make their living, a very hard-working living on the water.

Water is beautiful, but it can be dangerous. It can also just be unpleasant. When the cold wind blows frigid water or the boat is rocking in the tempest, it’s got to be a challenge. And yet this is the work they’ve chosen.

And so often (and lobsters are certainly a lovely case in point), the bounty they bring back is extraordinary.

Water is full of lovely gifts, but it doesn’t always make it easy to retrieve them.

So here’s to the Watermen and women and all they do for us. Here’s to their hard work and generosity. And here’s to the Peace they make with their work and the Water.

And oh, I am so grateful for Summer and the Peace I find in the laps I swim. I am so lucky.

Look at the Bounty; Find the Peace

Things keep happening. And all we see is the scarcity and the lack.

We have to look at what people are doing. We have to look at the hate.

But we also have to remember the incredible bounty. We have to remember that the well is not dry. We must fill ourselves up for the work ahead of us.

It’s summer. The gardens are pumping out vegetables as fast as they can… That abundance is there to nourish our bodies. It is also a reminder to our empty souls and broken heart that there is what is needed if we decide to share it. There is what is needed to renew our spirits.

It’s good if we take a look, because we need to keep ourselves strong… there is so much that is wrong so we must be strong to Peace. You and I, together, digging through all the grime. Peace. We can do this.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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